


Pre-Nightmare Moments

by impudent_strumpet



Series: In The Shadows [2]
Category: Plague Tale: Innocence (Video Game)
Genre: ASOIAF references, Almost Kiss, Arthur has to stop Melie from being stupid again, Battle, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brotherhood, Brothers, Canon Compliant, Canon Dialogue, Canon Era, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, Dialogue Light, Dreaming, During Canon, Escape, F/F, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gift Fic, Gift Work, Girls Kissing, I AM TRAAAAASH, I Ship It, I kind of wish there was an archive warning for garbage, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Introspection, Late at Night, Light Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, Melicia, Mental preparation for an upcoming fic, Mid-Canon, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, On the part of Melie haha, One Shot, POV Female Character, POV Third Person Limited, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Protective Older Brothers, Readers take note, Rescue, Rescue Missions, Sisters, Some Light Humor, That kind of happens every 2 seconds in this game though, They're impossible to miss, Twins, Wish Fulfillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 06:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20484623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impudent_strumpet/pseuds/impudent_strumpet
Summary: Gift fic for Valjinic with some absolutely shameless ASoIAF references ^^;





	Pre-Nightmare Moments

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Valjinic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valjinic/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Post nightmare moments](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19090291) by [Valjinic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valjinic/pseuds/Valjinic). 

> I am trash for this ^^;

_She was in a palace at nighttime, lit up with the soft fiery glow of several torches within, as stars twinkled in the sky without...  
  
In what looked like a tower being used as a redoubt.  
  
Some battle was raging on outside, as she faintly heard the clash of swords and roar of war cries in the distance. Within, many highborn ladies of the court dwelt, in their fine silken gowns, quiet and tense.  
  
Here Mélie was in her roughspun peasant's garb, sticking out like a sore thumb. Yet almost no one seemed to notice. Why she was here like this, or why she was here at all, evaded her.  
  
Then there was Princess Amicia de Rune beside her mother and little brother, still looking a paragon of beauty despite her slightly disheveled hair and uneasy expression. The thief girl had never seen her like this. She quickly averted her eyes and kept her distance, feeling so abjectly lowborn compared to the princess and like merely looking at her for too long could be taken as polluting her presence.  
  
No one had taken notice of her clear common status, oddly...except the princess' mother just then, whose brow furrowed. "Do I know this one?"  
  
Mélie stepped toward her, and curtsied awkwardly. "Your Majesty."  
  
"What is your name?" the queen asked.  
  
"Mélie...Your Majesty," the thief girl answered.  
  
"And where do you come from, Mélie?" the queen inquired.  
  
But just as the peasant girl opened her mouth to answer, a knight burst in, stopped beside her, and bowed quickly. "My queen. The battle is lost. The enemy troops are at the city gates."  
  
The queen visibly paled, her arm tightening around the little prince. The anxiety that filled the room only heightened, ladies murmuring to each other worriedly.  
  
Princess Amicia rose from where she sat and looked around the room, as if to deliver some kind of reassuring speech, but seemed disheartened upon seeing the distressed faces of the women around her. She looked so vulnerable, but still beautiful.  
  
Mélie had to keep her safe.  
  
"Princess," she whispered, and Amicia spun around to face her. "You and your mother and brother have to get out of here. Take them to your chamber with you and bar the door."  
  
Amicia looked worried. "What about you?"  
  
"I have to stay here...my brother is out there...but I'm not going near the bay." Where exactly Arthur was, Mélie actually did not know.  
  
"You can't!" Amicia protested. "Mother would not tell me, but I know... If the city falls, they'll rape everyone—"  
  
"_No one is raping me_," Mélie said firmly, disregarding any pretense of modesty in front of the princess and casting aside the hem of her tunic to show Amicia a concealed dagger. "Now run!"  
  
Amicia took her mother by the wrist and did so, the skirts of their gowns billowing in their wake, and Mélie breathed a sigh of relief that her princess would be safe.  
  
She had run to her brother, for some stupid reason, across the pitch-black battlefield...but had run too far and ended up almost knee-deep in the cold dark water of the bay. She turned back around, back on land as fast as she could, still worried for her brother but her legs seemed to be carrying her back to the castle of their own free will.  
  
Already she could hear the others laughing at her and saying she'd gone craven.  
  
...And she _somehow_ ended up in the princess' chamber with her, despite the door having been barricaded and that she had instructed Amicia to take her mother and brother with her.  
  
"Princess. Where are your mother and brother?" she asked.  
  
Amicia was silent for a beat, then said, "In the throne room." Before Mélie could wonder about the flatness in her tone, she remembered the small vial filled with essence of nightshade she had seen in a fold of the queen's gown. If it came to that, such would be the gift of mercy. The little prince could pass peacefully in his mother's arms then, before any rampaging men in armor could storm in with their swords thirsting for the blood of women and children.  
  
Then she felt Amicia's hand take her own, and glanced up to see the other girl's soft brown eyes staring into hers. "She's trusting you to protect me."  
  
Those damn starry eyes...  
  
Mélie hung her head. "Princess...forgive me, I can't, I__—"_  
  
_ "You can." Amicia placed both hands on the thief girl's shoulders. "I know. It was just the water that frightened you. You're not craven, I know you can protect me. We'll be alright here together." She closed her eyes and started to move her face closer to the redheaded girl's..._

~

  
  
Mélie opened her eyes to faint shafts of moonlight coming through the windows of Château d'Ombrage, offering some perception of its interior once one's eyes adjusted to the darkness.  
  
_Shit, I fell asleep sitting up again..._ she thought. That wasn't the first time she had done that. It was starting to become a habit, but she supposed it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, especially here. It allowed her to get on her feet faster than scrambling to them from lying down would, in the event of a threat approaching.  
  
But it also tended to leave her with an aching back or badly cricked neck.  
  
Rubbing the back of her neck, she breathed a soft sigh. What she had seen had just been a dream. A strange dream, but no one ever said those had to make sense.  
  
She was safe in Château d'Ombrage, with her brother, Amicia, Hugo, Lucas, and Rodric safe and sound nearby...and them only. Her dagger was at her hip in case any intruder were to try to harm her or any of the others...just like in the dream.  
  
But unlike it, there was no noise, no immediate danger, and no cold, black water. Her brother was right here with her, not surrounded by sharp steel and flowing blood on the other side of a gaping bay that threatened to pull her down like a sea of tar. Amicia was not an unreachable princess, but a highborn girl who had fallen to the same level as Mélie and her twin since the Inquisition had slain her father and set after her and Hugo.  
  
Just her father, it turned out. Her mother was being held and questioned at the Bastion, but she was alive. Mélie had thought Amicia to be an orphan like her at first, and Amicia had thought so too, but...then again, Mélie was no orphan either, not really. She too had just one dead parent, a dead mother in her case, and a father who hurt his children enough for them to finally run away and take up a life with only each other to rely on.  
  
_No one is raping me._  
  
Since running away from home, the thief girl had distrusted all others except her brother, but, to her surprise, she was glad now to have others to share her life with. Rodric, with his strength. Lucas, with his intelligence and alchemical aptitude. Little Hugo, whose innocence she had not seen the likes of in years. Amicia, who had shattered her every preconception of a young noblewoman upon seeing the de Rune girl's brusque protectiveness of her little brother and lethal prowess with her sling.  
  
She hoped the other girl knew what she was doing in keeping from Hugo that their mother was alive.  
  
From how Amicia had spoken of Hugo, he seemed like he had been very attached to their mother. Mélie supposed he had mostly been looked after by her before being left in Amicia's care.  
  
_"Hugo mustn't know anything of this."  
  
"Even that she's alive!? It might help him..."  
  
"And what will we say when he wants to see her? Tell him nothing, alright?"_  
  
That had been decided by Amicia practically the moment the twins came back. Mélie smiled to herself at the memory of Amicia joyfully calling out her name and running towards her when they arrived...but this had almost turned to anger when the de Rune girl found out they had discovered her mother but not rescued her with Arthur.  
  
Chills raised on Mélie's arms beneath the sleeves of her tunic at the memory of searching for Arthur in the Bastion. It had been anything but easy. She had become skilled at soundlessly making her way past others, be they roadside vendors or armed guards. But in the Bastion she felt as if every step and every breath she took sounded like the clapper of a bell. She would glance over her shoulder each time, always feeling someone behind her only for no one to be there. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest each time she saw something move. The process of picking the lock on Arthur's cell while trying to be quick and quiet about it was a whole other story.  
  
She wished she could have saved her princess' mother, been as brave as she was in her dream. But saving Arthur had been no easy task. No part of it had been. Making her way to his cell unseen seemed to have taken a lifetime, then setting him free and sneaking out with him another two, each nerve in her body as racked as the prisoners had been. And they had been caught in the end, just narrowly escaping as the guards chased after them with spears and arrows.  
  
Despite that, the guilt of having left behind Amicia's and Hugo's mother had struck Mélie so hard she almost went back for her. Her twin, always the more coolheaded one, had stopped her, saying that it would only put their lives at risk once again and those of the de Rune siblings, because of how important the Carrier's mother was to the Inquisition. That she had just gotten him back and would lose him again if they did this, he would lose her, and Amicia, Hugo, and Lucas would lose them both. That this would have happened if they stayed a moment longer at the Bastion to try to save Lady de Rune.  
  
He must have thought her momentary pause would be one of sad, reluctant resignation to just the two of them heading back to the château for their own safety.  
  
Instead she had made a mad dash back to the Bastion before her twin, thankfully, had caught up with her about twenty feet from the entrance and had to drag her kicking and screaming in the opposite direction.  
  
She doubted she would have the chance to save Amicia's mother again...but if she did, she knew she would do it.  
  
She glanced over at Amicia, who lay in what looked like a deep sleep a few feet away.  
  
_I could keep you safe._   
  
She knew she could, if she tried.  
  
_No one would hurt you again, or I'd kill them._


End file.
